Cape Town Adventures

Simon's Town

Well, it took me four flights and a very impatient 24 hours to get from Mombasa to Cape Town, but it was so worth it to FINALLY get to see Louie again!!!  We were reunited at the Cape Town airport last Saturday night, and we headed to our adorable hotel in Simon's Town, a suburb south of Cape Town right on the beach.  We had a very lovely week spending time together in the Cape Town area after almost three months apart!  I know nobody wants to hear the sappy stories (I can just hear my sisters making gagging noises as I type), but we did have a few pretty fun adventures as well.

Lots of Penguins

One of the things that we were most looking forward to doing was checking out the huge flock of African penguins that live on the beach just short walk from our hotel.  We were definitely not disappointed.  We saw at least one hundred penguins on the beach from a designated viewing area.  Then, as an added bonus, we ran into a few random penguins later that afternoon farther down the beach, and we were able to get really close to them and watch them for awhile.

Random Penguin Sighting!

Playing with seals at Alfred and Victoria Waterfront

We did venture into Cape Town twice via the slightly sketchy train connecting the suburbs.  We briefly hit some of the main tourist spots (I am not much of a sight-seer, but Louie forced me to check out a few things!) including the company gardens where we found a beautiful spot to sit and read for awhile, Greenmarket Square (typical souvenir stands all over, Louie got to witness my expert bargaining skills), and Alfred and Victoria Waterfront which is basically a really huge Navy Pier complete with a ferris wheel.  I also got to eat lunch at McDonalds which I had been waiting for weeks for!!  We also spent one evening in Cape Town checking out several bars and restaurants.

Stellenbosch Wine Country

One of the most fun things that we did was a bicycle tour through wine country, complete with two wine tastings.  Stellenbosch is such a beautiful place, but let me tell you, all the bike riding that Louie and I did last summer did not even come close to preparing us for the rolling (and some steep) hills of wine country!  And we were both really missing our own bikes with comfortable seats!  Our first tasting was in a gazebo on a cute little pond.  We got to try eight delicious wines and enjoy the beautiful day on the water.  Our second tasting was a wine and chocolate pairing (obviously our favorite one!).  We ended our tour with lunch at an adorable local restaurant with the best nachos ever!!

Tasting Number 1



Tasting Number 2



On our way up

Our biggest adventure was definitely climbing Table Mountain which is about 1,000 meters above sea level (Kilimanjaro is over 5,000 meters above sea level for comparison).  I did not particularly want to climb Table Mountain since seven days on Kilimanjaro was pretty much all the mountain climbing time I needed for this trip.  And there is a cable car to take you to the top!  But Louie really wanted to climb it, so after a quick stop at the Botanical Gardens, we headed up Skeleton's Gorge Trail to the top with the plan to take the cable car back down.  It took us about 3.5 hours of pretty strenuous but very beautiful hiking to get to the top, then another 45 minutes to walk across the top of the "table" to get to the cable car. 

Almost there!

To our dismay, the cable car had stopped running an hour earlier due to high winds!!  So after running into a poor guy from Japan who had taken the cable car up earlier in the day and gotten stranded on top, the three of us headed down the shortest (and definitely steepest!) path down the mountain.  I was by far the most experienced hiker of the three of us (which is pretty funny since I am not experienced at all!), and I practically had to drag Louie down the mountain because the path was "too steep" and the wind was blowing "too hard!"  His plan was the scoot down the mountain on his butt so that the wind didn't send him plunging to his death!  After calmly (he's lucky someone else was also with us!) explaining to him that if he didn't stand up and walk, we were going to end up hiking in the dark, we finally made some steady progress and made in down in about 80 minutes (with about 15 minutes to spare before dark!)  Then we hitch-hiked a ride back to town and treated ourselves to a few drinks!

Scary hike down!

Despite all of our fun adventures, we also really enjoyed just relaxing in quaint little Simon's Town and checking out the local hang-outs.  I think we hit every restaurant in town at least once (and the ice cream shop more than once!), and we even stumbled upon local live music twice.  And it was so lovely and relaxing to just sit by the harbor and watch the boats.

Our favorite restaurant

Louie and I parted ways last night, as he is heading back to Chicago and I am off to Poland (4 more flights to get there!!) for the last leg of my journey!  I can't believe that I will be home in just one week!